Humanity Is Not Sleeping; It’s In An Induced Coma

In the late 1960s, the sudden widespread availability of psychedelics combined with the circulation of eastern philosophy to the west to begin a radical transformation of human consciousness. Our species, desperate to transcend the residual trauma from two world wars and the existential terror of the nuclear age, began moving into a wildly unprecedented relationship with its capacity for abstract thought.

For the first time ever, humans began disentangling themselves from egoic consciousness on a mass scale, suddenly using thought as the useful tool it’s meant to be rather than the life-dominating addiction that it had become up until that point. World leaders not only permitted this transformation but actively facilitated it, realizing from their own encounters with this new revolution that humanity relinquishing its egoic mental constrictions opened up the possibility for the creation of paradise on earth.

As we became less egocentric, our values and interests changed. This led to changes in the way we vote, in the kinds of media we chose to consume, and in the kinds of ideas which were popularized.

This set the stage for the next level of human evolution in the arrival of the internet. For the first time in history humans were able to network their minds all around the world in real time, by the thousands, then by the millions, then by the billions. Our harmonious relationship with our inner world suddenly segued smoothly into the ability to develop a harmonious relationship with our outer world, no longer confined by space and time in sharing ideas and information with each other.

With clear minds networked in a truly democratic way we were quickly able to identify and solve all the remaining problems in our world, and we saw ourselves transitioning into a collaborative relationship with each other and with our ecosystem which gave us all a quality of life that had been unimaginable up until a few decades ago.

Now, here in 2019, all human creativity and ingenuity goes toward finding new ways to help us survive and thrive and understand. Technological innovation, once mostly stagnated in the cognitive cul-de-sacs of figuring out new ways to exploit and dominate each other and commit more efficient acts of mass military violence, is now flourishing and expanding at an exponential rate. We have indeed created Heaven on earth together.

Oh,

but,

that was just a dream I had.

It could have gone down like that. There’s no reason it couldn’t have. Maybe in a parallel universe it did. But, here in this timeline, it didn’t.

Here in this timeline, the people in power wanted to remain in power thank you very much, even if it meant making life worse for everyone in the long run, including themselves.

Here in this timeline, we had all the medicine we needed to cure our sickness, but we were forbidden from using it.

Here in this timeline, plutocrats bought up all the media so they can tell us every day how important it is to continue bolstering the status quo, and that the only thing up for debate is what strategies we should use to do so.

Here in this timeline they got us dependent on money, and then devalued it to ensure that we’re working harder and harder for less and less so we have no time to expand our consciousness of our inner or outer worlds.

Here in this timeline psychedelics were made as illegal as heroin or cocaine, and their use was stigmatized as a dangerous activity for criminals and degenerates.

Here in this timeline, control of the internet was quickly shored up by plutocratic interests and government agencies, and traffic is now directed toward authorized platforms sharing authorized narratives which bolster the status quo and manufacture consent for establishment agendas.

Here in this timeline, we had all the tools to escape this prison, but they were taken from us and replaced with more prison bars. Taken by people who were more clever than the rest of us, and who had enough money and influence to shut the whole thing down.

For some weird reason I found myself watching a spiritual guru-type guy discussing his political views on a video yesterday, and, like most spiritual guru-type people, his view of our political reality was highly malnourished. He kept talking about how all our problems are the result of humanity being deeply unconscious, and how that unconsciousness leads us to elect deeply unconscious leaders. Like “elected leaders” are the ones calling the shots. No mention of plutocrats, opaque government agencies or propaganda; the only problem, according to spiritual guru-type guy, is that we’re all equally asleep at the wheel and all equally responsible for what’s going on.

Spiritual guru-type guy is wrong. Humanity is not sleeping. Humanity is in an induced coma.

If our society had simply been permitted to progress along its natural trajectory at a natural pace and to use the innovations that we’d discovered in a natural way, we would all be wide awake by now. The psychedelic revolution would have continued and matured and grown into adulthood instead of being murdered in its infancy, and our exponentially increasing ability to network and share information would have coupled with our mature consciousness to build a deeply awakened society that benefits every living creature on this planet. That would have happened, and it is only because of the unnatural interference of a very few deeply unwise people that we stayed locked in the matrix, now faced with the looming threat of near term human extinction.

This is a crime against humanity which far surpasses all of the most egregious atrocities in any history book. What these people have done to us, what they have taken from us, what they have twisted us into, is an offense so profoundly evil that it cries out to the heavens for vengeance.

The good news, if there is any to be had, is that there are still more of us than there are of them, and that all the tools they took from us are still there to be used if we care enough to take them back.

A woman once had an LSD trip in which she realized the illusory nature of the separate self, seeing clearly that she’d been living in a dream world her entire life up until that point. The effects of the entheogen wore off, and she convinced herself that it was just a pleasant drug high. She made herself forget it, plunged herself into her career, got a promotion, got a husband, got a nice two-story house in the suburbs at 4.5 percent interest, got some kids, and got plenty of stress but whatever there’s always wine.

Decades later, after finding nothing but suffering along her chosen life trajectory, she began thinking about that LSD trip she took way back when. She began wondering if maybe that strange, sacred experience had been real after all. If, maybe, it was the only real thing that had ever happened to her.

That’s kind of where our whole species is at right now. A door opened up in the sixties which was very quickly and violently slammed shut, and now there are independent flickerings all around the world of that strange, sacred light that still shines under the crack of that door. We still have the ability to open it up again. We’ve only got to want it enough.

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antoinette/July 23, 2019

Very grateful for this message and for the friend who sent it to me. Still, we need a method for all coming together, not just scattered, ndependant flickerings…I think it may take a charismatic leader with their head and heart enlightened.

tracy/July 21, 2019

bill neet/July 20, 2019

I love these comments – and most of Caitlin’s reader comments. Like we are really ever going to change anything. LOL. The masses love the Trumper – he is telling them everything they want to hear. And [seemimgly]accomplishing everything they want to be done. Even my “educated” friends like what he is doing. So we are all royally f*cked. So lets’ party like it was 1966 and enjoy the ride to oblivion.

As far as I can tell, this author is among the most competent intellectuals around today (not surprisingly ignored by the mainstream pseudo-intellectuals). I urge urge urge you to read the book without prior judgement (it would be easy to write him off as a “creationist” which would be a serious error; he is an accomplished scientist; as a fellow scientist, I confirm that the evidence for prevalent evolution theory is weak; the theory has found widespread acceptance precisely because it fits well with the grand (but false) narrative of capitalism and progress).

Cassidy/July 18, 2019

Do you know there is a budding revolt in the USA right now? Its in Puerto Rico. Crowds of tens of thousands outside the governor’s mansion, demanding he resign, trying to enter the mansion, the police counterattacking. The question about whether how you get out of the induced coma is timely. Here’s some questions to ask? How are your news sources covering this story? Have they been? Do they refer only to the governor’s Trump-like chats that were leaked, and try to dismiss the protests? Or do your news sources talk about everything that the island has been through, especially since the hurricane? Does your news tell you that three cabinet members have already resigned and face corruption charges? Or does your news just try to talk about the crude thing these men said in the permanent record of an online chat? If you search on Puerto Rico Protest, does your search engine only return the “authoritarian” responses of the “official” news? Or does it return youtube videos from Puerto Rico? Does it return various latino sites which are discussing the protests? Or does it only tell you what CNN says you need to know? Now, check with your friends on the same questions. Use it as a nice tool to try to wake them up. ———————– It is possible to break out of the coma. But it does take effort. The good news is that once you are out of it, at least for me it is impossible to go back. I’ve already unplugged from their mass culture, and once you see the world without their manipulations, I find it is impossible to plug back in and accept the trivia that serves to keep the coma patients asleep. So, go forth and try to wake people up. Find the people who are already restless in their slumber, and give them a little shake on the shoulder. Be nice about it, because we want these people both awake and on the side of the rest of us human beings against the machine that wants to kill us all.

mike k/July 18, 2019

As Aldous Huxley indicated in his final book Island, entheogens could be useful if skillfully introduced at two or three points in a persons long journey of practice and awakening. But to overuse them – as most of us did in the 60’s – would prove very counter productive. Until we have a spiritual culture wise enough to use entheogens appropriately, it is better to leave them alone, and save them for a time when they can be used safely and effectively. I would exclude cannabis from this warning, as it’s effects are much milder than other psychedelics.

Clint/July 18, 2019

Simonzz, Thank you for the post, You brought up some important questions. I had to do a little reading on linear and non linear thought.https://chuckslamp.com/index.php/2009/04/11/non-linearthinking/ I think you are misunderstanding my viewpoint. I am not so much concerned with ‘logical’ thought in a linear fashion as I am with the exclusions of errors in the process. These errors (fallacies) don’t belong in either linear or non-linear thought or dialog. They are the fly in the ointment.

The real issue as I see it is that each person forms opinions, beliefs, conclusions using their own process of thought, however that may work (linear, non-linear or something in between) and may honestly or unknowingly introduce errors (fallacies) into the process.

I am all for non-linear thought. That is precisely what I am trying to accomplish The article I linked to above referenced non-linear thinking as “brainstorming” or “seeing the big picture”. That is what my solution is all about. I hope you will read some of my blog post.

For me a ‘Collective Intelligence’ would encompass thousands of viewpoint from different individuals. That is non-linear thinking. It would also make Logic and reason the moderators and that may involve a linear process. It is all about creating a clearer viewpoint and more logical and rational conclusions. It is an ‘intelligence’ nothing more, just as you are an intelligence or a being who possesses intelligence.

What I am trying to show is that in today’s world we rely upon ‘Individual intelligence’ (leaders) the same standard that we have always relied upon. Find the best and the brightest and make them the ‘Leader’ The problem here is the power vested upon leaders or individuals, (kings, Popes, EU leaders) and the errors they may honestly or dishonestly introduce. Our world and it’s technology is much to dangerous to allow this same paradigm to continue uncontested. I want to contest it.

At present they are attempting to demonize ( a fallacy, error) Russian so they can start a war. Such a simple, stupid thing but the general public falls for it every time. Why because they see it coming from ‘Authority’. Government leaders, party leaders, CIA, intelligence services

All I propose is that we reclaim the ‘Authority’ from the Leaders and endow it to the populace in the form of a “Collective Intelligence’, Something we can all participate in transparently and collectively, using drugs or not. We just need a framework (software, hardware) that organizes, sorts and presents logically and rationally our ‘Collective Intelligence’ It is all about the ‘Process’ and that is the real key. Less errors, more perspectives, better logic and rational when it is there for all to see and participate in. Rather than, “what do our ‘Leaders think”, oh F#&* “ Our reliance on Individual Intelligence and the black box of the human mind, where the process is hidden and the biases and motives are obscure needs to go the way of the DoDo.

mike k/July 18, 2019

Krishnamurti summed it all up by saying, “there is no authority”. The beliefs surrounding the concept of authority are delusional and untrue. What we posit as being there has no meaning or significance, it is only a mind created chimera.

mike k/July 18, 2019

Clint/July 18, 2019

I can buy into that in a sense. That is one reason I believe the idea a ‘Collective Intelligence’ facilitated by modern hardware and software is important. If you are basically no one, no degree, no Phd or seat on the board, etc, etc. yet have a contributing insight, the anonymous nature of a Collective Intelligence would accept and integrate what you have to say for the benefit of all.

On the other hand most within many societies have never heard of Krishnamurti and couldn’t give a care what he says. Authority only needs power to back it up and that is what it is all really about. You must also understand that sociology plays a very Large part. Who’s in, who’s out and what the herd believes, if society grants person A authority then they also grant them power and until you change the perception of society and the authority of their God/King those will be the rules of the road.

For me a Collective intelligence presents a superior intelligence to what we now rely on, ( Individual Intelligence ) Think of if as a type of human powered Artificial Intelligence. Authority ( lets just say most trusted status ) will go to the Intelligence perceived by society to be superior.

Authority is also tied to the rule of Law and until you find a novel way to circumvent the law at your will. There will be Authority. Authority dictionary; “Usually authorities. persons having the legal power to make and enforce the law; government”

speedbird/July 18, 2019

Lots of truth here. Doors open and close. Doesn’t have to have chemical assistance. But as several commenters have suggested, when you feel your ‘door open’ head on, read the prophets. Freddie puts it as well as anyone: ‘I had a dream when I was young, a dream of sweet illusion. A glimpse of hope and unity, and visions of one sweet union. But a cold wind blows and a dark rain falls, and in my heart it shows – look what they’ve done to my dream!’

Cassidy/July 18, 2019

” There were days and there were days and there were days I know when all we ever wanted was to learn and love and grow Once we grew into our shoes we told them where to go walked halfway around the world on promise of the glow stood upon a mountain top walked barefoot in the snow gave the best we had to give how much we’ll never know we’ll never know

There were days and there were days and there were days between polished like a golden bowl the finest ever seen Hearts of Summer held in trust still tender, young and green left on shelves collecting dust not knowing what they mean valentines of flesh and blood as soft as velveteen hoping love would not forsake the days that lie between lie between” — The Days Between, words by Robert Hunter, performed by the Grateful Dead.

Roses/July 18, 2019

Happy Trails To You! Until We Meet Again! — something I once heard playing from the speakers as I made my way dancing from a concluded Grateful Dead concert. 🙂 Sometimes its wise to go find and check out that stuff they all say is bad, very bad. 🙂 Its always quite possible that what they really mean is that its bad for them if you smile and laugh and don’t go into the army to kill people.

So many comments! I came late to hallucinogens & cannabis (1971), never got into alcohol & eventually withdrew from nicotine (the two drugs that kill the most people & so are approved & taxed).

On the basis of about 200 standard doses (mainly LSD, some psilocybin, once mescaline, taken in 60-80 sessions over about 3 years), I know that there is indeed a reality (not imagined) beyond what Carlos Castaneda called ‘the reality of common consent’, by which he meant something like a lowest common set. We learn to largely ignore or suppress the private set, the non-overlapping part we cannot share nor perhaps even admit.

This is partly a problem of language; language develops to communicate shared experience. It can be manipulated to express private experience, as music can to represent programmatic sensation; both are extensions beyond the natural domains of language & music. Mathematics is probably the only language capable of such extension without loss of meaning or truth.

Yes, we all submitted. I was seduced by conventional social expectation – marriage, mortgage, study, career – & almost forgot that other world, the rest of me. Cannabis soothed my pain, let me sleep.

Caitlin is right I think: our other world is still there, & we are many more than those who imprison us & benefit from our captivity…

…except that there’s also us; we imprison & compensate ourselves, so the numbers are equal.

Will we rebel? Or rather, at what point will we rebel? Our environment is in truly serious trouble. The economic & eventually social consequences will be dramatic. Already you can see the movement & the fault lines. We are very quiescent though. There are loyalties & patriotism & material attachments to loosen, beliefs & ‘certainties’ to shed.

We are still a long way from transcendence. It might never happen in time for survival. Most of our generation are already old & will not see the next wave of transformation. We will never know whether it happens or not. We’ll see a generalised collapse first.

I’m an optimist. Humanity has progressed, ‘though not as far as it likes to think. It will progress further, after destroying much of what it’s achieved & much of everything else first. Even if humans manage to exterminate themselves (the best thing for everything else alive on Earth), life will go on until the sun explodes.

Knackers/July 17, 2019

A door opened up in the sixties which was very quickly and violently slammed shut with the assassinations of every great leader with a vision of peace for humanity – JFK, MLK and RFK. And if anyone is seriously committed to opening up this door again, we now know precisely what its going to take. It’s going to cost you your very life. If you really want to change the world, speak truth to power – scream it from the rooftops – and get ready to die. As every great soul from Socrates to Christ to Joan of Arc to Julian Assange has reminded us, there’s never been any other way.

Roses/July 18, 2019

Yes. Do not rebel. Its too dangerous. Move along, move along. Its dangerous to go and join the protests. Every tellie says so. There is no alternative. You can not win. You can only die if you even dare to try. The loud message repeats. Over and over again. On every channel. Do not rebel. It is dangerous. Do not rebel. It is dangerous. Do not rebel. It is dangerous. ——————- We just remembered Bastille Day. It is almost certain that some of the peasants who broke down those gates and freed the prisoners had been told exactly the same thing.

Knackers/July 19, 2019

Bruce A Meikle/July 17, 2019

mike k/July 17, 2019

Unfortunately the failure of LSD to deliver a new human and a new world, was repeated in terms of unrealistic expectations for higher consciousness to deliver the same magical fix to all our problems. But the accumulated karma of all our lifelong conditioning dos not vanish with enlightenment, as Ken Wilber has been at great pains to explain to us. After enlightenment (which we misunderstood in the first place) many very serious problems requiring long and skillful work to unravel remain to be tackled.

mike k/July 17, 2019

mike k/July 17, 2019

And BTW I was part of the 60’s revolution, and I still honor many of the ideals of that era. But to blame the eventual collapse of that movement entirely on the establishment powers opposed to it s not the whole story, We were not ready to do the hard and time consuming work on ourselves that would have been necessary for a more lasting result. That work still remains for most of us to do. A better world will only result from enough people doing the long work necessary to prepare for it and sustain it.

Michel Bélisle/July 17, 2019

I just want to emphasize the difference between the discourse of people from the present ruling elites, politicians, mainstream media people, plutocrats and all the rest with the words of the Son of God:

“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matthew 24: 37-39)

Do you see our today’s elites speaking like that?

I pray the Rosary to hasten the Second Coming of Jesus, the most truthful man ever to have been on this earth, because I really really really have seen and heard enough.

Michel Bélisle/July 17, 2019

They continue to vote for mainstream political parties which are dedicated to the wishes of the plutocratic class.

People have only themselves to blame.

More and more I see the sad event of 9-11 as a kind of judgement of mankind. Just read what Saint Paul has to say in (II Thess.II, 10–11):

“to them that perish . . . God shall send the operation of error, to believe lying: that all may be judged who have not believed the truth, but have consented to iniquity.”

So, to believe a blatant lie like 9-11 would be to “consent to iniquity”.

To believe a blatant lie, you have to be of bad faith.

It was in the days of Noah that people were all of bad faith except for Noah being of good faith.

This is the return of the days of Noah just before the Second Coming of Jesus as Jesus Himself told us it would be:

“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matthew 24: 37-39)

We have to pray the Rosary to hasten the return of Jesus. I have more than seen enough.

Clint/July 17, 2019

Caitlin sitting in the pumpkin patch again thinking that somehow things will just flower and change.

Para. 1 No drugs and Eastern philosophy are not going to suddenly take precedence over food, water, sex and the power to live your life how you choose. Trauma, abstract thought? It is not like we invented war or art just yesterday.. See food, water, sex and power

Para 2. “disentangling themselves from egoic consciousness” see food, water, sex and power. “suddenly using thought as the useful tool it’s meant to be” They are using it to obtain; food, water, sex and power. That life dominating addiction is called survival and living large and no these are not going out of style.

“World leaders not only permitted this transformation but actively facilitated it” Worst sentence ever; Permitted? Are these not the same sociopaths we battle here every day and now they are some type of Hindu facilitators? No make this the new worst sentence ever; “humanity relinquishing its egoic mental constrictions” Is this the end of the “self”? No it’s not going to happen, people will always operate from their individual perspective and yes they will defend their self “ego”

For all the good Caitlin does, all the vital insight, the great battle, the voice of rebellion. I only with she would stop trying over and over and over to pound a square peg into a round hole.

Yes, “suddenly using thought as the useful tool” is the answer it is just not going to come about because of “psychedelics” and “eastern philosophy” It’s not, it’s not It’s never, never, ever, ever, ever, ever going to happen. Now repeat that every morning when you wake up and before you go to bed.

Human logic is fractured, abuse and misused and that is why our “thoughts” fail. Yes technology will one day allow us to utilize logic in the formation of stronger conclusion (hopefully) and bring about peace. Still, don’t expect that food, water, sex and power to go out of style any time soon and that as long as HUMAN LOGIC (just highlighting) is broken and abused to facilitate individual needs and wants don’t expect to see the end of our deadly competition as individuals and groups of individuals form their own conclusions based on whatever they feel at the moment.

Not trying to be mean to Caitlin. She deserves our eternal gratitude. Here are her quotes you should reconsider or focus on; “For the first time in history humans were able to network their minds all around the world in real time, by the thousands, then by the millions, then by the billions.” “no longer confined by space and time in sharing ideas and information with each other” “ With clear minds networked in a truly democratic way we were quickly able to identify and solve all the remaining problems in our world, and we saw ourselves transitioning into a collaborative relationship with each other”

These above quotes are the deal, Just cut out, skip the drugs and Eastern Philosophy and replace them with technology; software and hardware that facilitates the reforming and authority of human logic Because that’s what all those “thoughts” are about.

I love what Caitlin does. She gets it. Then she doesn’t. Right vision and goals, wrong path getting there.

@Clint: The “World leaders not only permitted this transformation but actively facilitated it” thingy was a fantasy sideline written by CJ to show what COULD have happened.

“Oh,

but,

that was just a dream I had.”

Maybe you need to go back and re-read her article to better comprehend what she was trying to convey.

Caitlin’s writings are shot through with hints, and sometimes more direct statements, that humanity needs to relinquish the false self (aka ego-based consciousness) or die. So long as we believe we are separate from the rest of the universe, and in fact experience this as self-evident truth, we will continue to participate, actively and/or passively, in mass murder and ecocide, and will rush headlong toward the cliffs of nuclear war and climate catastrophe.

We are being relentlessly drawn to a point where we will have to choose between love and collective suicide. Love can unlock any door, including doors you didn’t know existed, and the grand cosmic joke is that when you walk through those doors you meet the self you really were all along.

Then you see, plain as day, that the entire universe is being recreated at every instant in the mind of God, that everything is soaked in divine light, that time as we experience it is an illusion, that we are all divine beings living in a divine universe, and that our experience of ourselves as separate from everything and everyone else was just an illusion.

This last revelation is what most frightens the power mongers. Who will want to carry out the day-to-day tasks of empire (killing, torturing, raping, exploiting, mind-f*cking) when the intended victims are recognized as divine sparks of God, identical with one’s self?

Then the game is over. The sociopaths at the top will do ANYTHING to prevent this, and in fact vast industries are devoted to just this purpose.

Wow, Wilton, yes. The opened door of the 60’s may have been cosmic or it could have been fueled by psychedelics –the important thing is that many of us woke to the very oneness you describe. Some had emotional pain that needed medicine and it didn’t cure them so their pain took them out. Others of us ate mushrooms, peyote, etc, and experienced the absolute connection of everything in One, and wrote on the kitchen wall of our cabins in the redwoods: “God is love.” Or, “There is only One thing here.” Next time: “There is no Thing here.”

I read my notes in the morning and agreed but without a real sense of what I was experiencing when I wrote them. So I sent out in search of an ongoing life experience of that oneness and the absence of Thing. I traveled many paths, tried too hard and took doses too big for my being to assimilate, stopped them, and ultimately found what I was looking for on my own. If I had not known the altered states of plant medicines, I would probably never have been jolted off the path my parents and culture set for me.

Clint/July 17, 2019

“a dream I had” fiction yes, Hoped for perfect world, yes too. This still represents what Caitlin and so many others see as the “utopia” the “awakening”, “enlightenment” etc. plant a garden, live independently and it goes on and on. There seems to be an endless list of Magical fixes. I’m just trying to say it’s a dead end, waste of time and a false hope. One of my new favorite quotes; From Buckminster Fuller, whoever that is (he sounds smart)

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete”

What I am attempting to get across is that you are never going to “fix” this world. That lazy slob that drinks too much, sleeps too late and has no ambition. Is not going to suddenly get up, run off to college and become a doctor. May I add blind, deaf lazy slob just so you are sure.

We need a new world, but not entirely. What we need is to change the way people come to conclusions. We need to introduce logic back into the equation. Logic must moderate.

What I wish Caitlin would say is; I dreamed the programmers of the world developed an open source platform that we could all participate in anonymously. It was transparent and open 24/7 as a creative and intellectual work as well as a learning tool for all to come. The software put forth the logic of all mankind as the moderator. The outcome being a form of human powered A.I. No longer was human ignorance., malice or emotion allowed to sway the forces of intellect and the future of humanity. Amen

Simonzz/July 18, 2019

No I don’t think either of these dreams are it. Lets keep looking. A drug fueled haze of psychedelics wasn’t going to lead to a new enlightened society. That’s day-dreaming pure and simple. As Catilin just admitted inconsistent bursts of non-linear awareness doesn’t stop most people from continuing to be a useless fuck up. They need to work on the pattern and reference system of the consciousness. That takes hard graft.

But you seem to have an Ayn Rand level hard-on for ‘human logic’. Haven’t we been trying to reconcile linear and non linear awareness for some time?

So humans have their base survival needs and those won’t suddenly magically disappear. yeah..big deal.

Do you not think that there may be potential ‘higher order’ potentials to humans as well and that a more full activation of these can – at least to some extent – ‘render the existing model obsolete’. Do you not think ‘food and sex’ may, to some extent, be modified by the fuller activation of these higher order faculties – of which ‘human logic’ is a partial aspect of?

Is Permaculture a ‘magic fix’ of ‘growing a garden’ or is it an evolving holistic design system combining linear and non linear thought – the potential of which has probably been barely explored?

Is your faith in ‘human logic’ this absolute that you cannot see the value of ‘non linear’ awareness which ‘eastern philosophy’ is aeons ahead of western thought on?..behind the superficial 60’s image of it that you seem to fixate on and despise?

Perhaps you should look a bit closer into that Buckminster Fuller you like the sound of. He may have a thing or two to teach you about this. Though i’m afraid you’ll find he’s broadly more in agreement with all those ‘woo woo’ eastern people regarding the value of ‘non linear’ thought.

Clint/July 18, 2019

Simonzz, Please see my reply above. This comments section is only set up for limited opinons and venting. All the good nuggets of insight will be swept away by tomorrows new story. Nothing accomplished, nothing created. Anyway see above. Thanks for the replly.

Dennis Okeefe/July 17, 2019

I have to disagree if you are saying that any amount of drug taking can lead to an enlightened society. Such experiences give a glimpse at best of what is possible but cannot on their own provide motivation to walk the long walk which brings actual transformation. For most people they would just lead to a diffirent sort of stupor.

And Psychedelic Music fills the air. I, personally, learned a lot from LSD, I found that if I dropped it in the city of Los Angeles and I went for a walk through Watts or Compton I realized that I was living in a Hell on Earth, when I went hitch hiking with a back pack and got the heck out of town into Big Sur or Yosemite or Tao’s New Mexico, I was in Heaven on Earth. That is where we are now, somewhere between Hell and Heaven, Like Limbo maybe……I gave it up when I realized that it opened a magic door, but one was only allowed to visit, not stay forever, so I sought a way to open that door forever. Krishnamurti called it the Golden Drug, and a delusion because one’s mind is always playing tricks on itself to avoid Reality……I sure like your latest post’s Ms. Johnstone, very well said and needed by all of us…..Keep up the good work! “Look deeply into yourself. Past your bones. Either way. Past them looking out, or past them looking in. Find the space that isn’t: the non-material center of selfhood. It will speak to you about your future. Now, surface contradictions will not be able to undermine the convictions of inner strength. When men remain true to their primal existence, nothing speaks more truly than their experience. Your primal existence says, “On! Now! On to the House of Mankind!” And you will do it, because it is in you to move on, as much as it is in a planet to spin, or a Sun to shine.~~~~~There are no fictions in basic existence. The planet is not a fiction. The Sun is not. Life is not. Mankind is not. You are not. Your yearning is not. The future holds what the present has not attained and you yearn for it. “Build the House of Mankind!” Your mind proclaims the truth of it. And your self believes it in spite of frustrations. On to the Sun, to light, to weightless dancing. The impetus of tomorrow crowns today and each day when we believe that the goal of men is mankind fulfilled. Nothing can supersede this. Nothing can change it, not even men, themselves. No other achievement has value except as it contributes to this one. That is the Great Faith which is not really a faith, for it is predetermined by the existence men are. We must retain the experience of this in order to have the faith and stamina required to bring mankind to fulfillment.” from The Experience, a Celebration of Being, by Sirio Esteve, 1974~~~~~

mike k/July 17, 2019

What some of us discovered through extensive experimentation with psychedelics (entheogens as Huston Smith and others called these mostly naturally occurring substances) was that taken alone they did not offer the magic carpet to utopia we dreamed of. The new human necessary to create a new world needed more work with the ancient tools devised for this project, like yoga and meditation, as well as developing a clear eyed rationality to assess reality for what it actually is, as opposed to the made up versions so many are deluded by. The “journey to the east” (Herman Hesse) was undertaken for this purpose, as was the investigative project called Esalen at Big Sur, which was loosely based on Auroville in India.

What we have found out with all this searching is that the project to transform ourselves is long and often arduous, We are far from discovering a short cut to obviate this lengthy process. As my Sufi guide often reminded us aspirants “you have to work for it!” That’s the reality, and unfortunately not many among us are up for the task.

bob/July 17, 2019

i share your pain but…

it looks to me like the internet was created as a kontrol system, and they got us all to think it was for our freedom. precisely like lsd!

it was the kontrol system that created the psychedelic revolution to increase kontrol. navel gazing doth not an activist make. psychedelics destroy rational thought when taken continually. destroy the ability to organize collectively. psychedelics create identity politics. psychedelics increase meaningless sexuality. psychedelics create the desire for more psychedelics.

read “storming heaven” or “acid dreams”

the most psychedelic society ever- the aztecs- practiced public human sacrifice and cannibalism. in europe they did the same but without the cannibalism. psychedelics make you believe in psychedelics.

the anti-war movement in the usa was largely catholic before psychedelics. see thomas merton. don’t need no psychedelics to oppose tyranny.

psychedelics are used by secret societies for initiation. ergot fungus at the elysian mysteries seems to have led to lsd at dead shows.

anyway Caitlin, twas ever thus. the people in a trance, the elite worshipped as gods.

even you might think little kids should be allowed to have sex change surgery. thats where psychedelics got us.

I disagree re with Internet. Many of its architects and engineers in the 1980s & ’90s were/are consumers of psychedelics and on the ground floor at the origins of Burning Man—or so says Michael Pollan in “How to Change Your Mind.” Same for those who evolved computers from room-size mainframes to desktop appliances. From what I’ve read, they truly believed that they were liberating information and connecting humanity. They resisted the commercialization of the Web as long as they could. Commercialization has devolved into weaponization by the corporate state.

Something similar happened with LSD: An international cadre of therapists were getting miraculous results with it, but, thanks/no thanks to Tim Leary et al, LSD jumped the fence & escaped scientific control. MK Ultra didn’t help. When a mind-altering drug is misused, just as with automobiles or alcohol or the Internet, it can become dangerous.

Peacerunner/July 17, 2019

A travesty of writing based on fallacy. When will people see that drugs, alcohol, all of the mind wasters are simply one more way they are trying to control us and quiet our strong inner voice. Turn away from artificial means of seeking truth and trust yourself. It’s our only chance.

Renee Michel/July 17, 2019

I agree. The love of my my life was destroyed by LSD, he became crazy. My first husband had a mental illness and drugs only exacerbated his symptoms, he recently died alone in a room from renal failure. My second husband drank, smoked weed, snorted coke, he was an incredible liar, a Republican member of the NRA. I feel guilty. I saw early in the sixties how drugs were being used to distract rather enlighten, to control rather than free. So, I kept my distance. Then, instead of going along and joining in groups, memberships, organizations, and fads, I sought my own natural course. I have refused to participate. Each individual needs to refuse. Don’t buy at designated holidays, don’t buy anything except basic necessities. Learn to make your own things. Move away from the cities. Relearn indigenous skills. I feel guilty because I sold most of my stuff and moved out. I live in Costa Rica now. I refuse to participate in the commercial militaristic narcissistic sick society called the U.S. I anticipate the day I get my citizenship here. I reject the greatest power on earth. Imagine what would happen if there were tens of thousands like me, the whole thing would unravel. It only holds its shape through participation. People have told me it is impossible for them to leave. Funny how poor people with nothing can walk hundreds of miles to our border with everything they own in a backpack to seek escape from violence and hunger, yet more wealthy people find it inconceivable to get out of their false comfort and leave. Yes, you can refuse the fake life. You can do it without a guru, or organization, or permission of some leader. Just refuse to participate, refuse to go along with it, reject the lies you have been told and walk away. I feel guilty because all my life I was told that I have to fight against things. Well, that is a perfect situation for the people with ultimate power, they sit and watch as you bang your fists against the glass, wasting your energy. I really suggest everyone read 1984 again. I refuse to participate and am now one less person driving on the crowded freeway, one less person voting in a rigged political system, one less person purchasing toxic food at the grocery store, one less person watching commercials and propaganda. I only keep my technology to wave my hands at everyone still in the matrix to direct you to the exit door before it is barred. Leave and create the life you need – somewhere else and in a different way. You as an individual. On your own two feet. While you still can.

F. Foundling/July 17, 2019

You don’t need to do drugs or to ponder ‘the illusoriness of the self’ to figure out that starting wars is bad, that arbitrary power will be abused and that people in need should be helped. Nor does doing drugs and pondering ‘the illusoriness of the self’ necessarily lead people to figure out the abovementioned things, let alone do something about them. CJ may combine the two, but that combination is, if anything, relatively rare (probably because doing drugs is usually a relatively extreme form of hedonistic escapism), so insisting that it’s necessary and obligatory seems a bit presumptuous. Moreover, I’d say that if an alleged superior insight into the universe crucially requires self-induced hallucinations, its validity is dubious. . By the way, doing drugs and pondering the ‘illusoriness of the self’ don’t imply each other either.

Steve Rauworth/July 17, 2019

The control freaks and profiteers, who will stop at nothing to stay in power, were scared shitless by the cultural revolution of the 60’s, which was the first movement to actually threaten their rule in centuries, perhaps millennia. So whether by active conspiracy or commonly shared consensus, they basically said “we’re never allowing this shit to happen again,” and so far they’ve been right, they have all the cards, it’s been shut down. But not forgotten.

You’d think that the simple fact that there was the possibility of fundamental, radical change in those days would wake enough people to a similar necessity now, when conditions have become much worse. But sadly, most people, even those who claim to want change (aka liberal Democrats), don’t really like messy freedom, with all its excesses, and would rather have tidy, predictable, non-threatening fascism. Their wealth, whether they even realize it in their advertising anesthetic zombie state, is worth more to them than the rivers of blood spilled making them comfortable.

Dan/July 17, 2019

Well said. But LSD is man made. Used against people just like heroin, meth, crack, by the very people you rail against. If you had said like cow pasture shrooms by kids or peyote by natives, then yes enlifhtening. All have been used by chemists in very bad human experiments and should not be proclaimed as enlightening. As of this moment there are lefal experiments going on with ptsd vet using psychodelics and with fda approval. Exactly what germans did in ww2

Peter Frank/July 17, 2019

Even without the drugs, we all experience what you write about at certain fleeting moments, often when we are in bed in a semi-awake state. I think most people know they have an semi- unconscious awareness that a better reality is possible.

The challenge is to understand that political economy that transforms social relations above the power and profit motive is how we measure improvements to life. The change must be in the social realm, not the individual realm. You were right about the guru guy. Religion and psych can be a narcissistic trap that keeps people socially impotent.

Shilo/July 17, 2019

Great summary Caitlin ! Your spiritual guru-type guy is not wrong, but you’re quite right to point out that in his proclaimed awareness and explanation he doesn’t go far enough in describing the real causes of our current malaise. Before one can reform the world, one should reform oneself, otherwise the flaws within simply become imprinted on the outer world. This has happened again and again in history. The inner revolution is the real revolution. However one has to ‘wake up’ to everything, and especially to the dark underbelly of activity undermining every aspect of human life in the 21st century. Our collective mission has become enlightening this darkness, and exposing and opposing the malevolent creatures lurking in its recesses. Writers like you help the cause greatly.

foster goodwill/July 17, 2019

Judi Walthour/July 17, 2019

“I’m glad mushrooms are against the law, because I took them one time, and you know what happened to me? I laid in a field of green grass for four hours going, “My God! I love everything.” Yeah, now if that isn’t a hazard to our country … how are we gonna justify arms dealing when we realize that we’re all one?”

Trisha Driscoll/July 17, 2019

What is the natural trajectory of our society? I believe it is running in a direction set to a large degree by the unique human capacity to acquire an ever-increasing share of resources via technology and organization.

Simply put, human groups – led by sociopaths – discovered how to expand their ecological niche at the expense of other species and less acquisitive human groups. And in a form of biological succession, humans – intentionally or not – are crowding out all competition.

Today the social trajectory is like a hurricane, with spinning torrents of information – mostly useless, enormously complex systems of power relationships that – due to inertia – seem immune to change, while the planet is literally being sucked up and devoured.

Coupled with biological succession and thermodynamics of complex non-equilibrium systems, I believe humans have lost control over their social trajectory. This started with the agricultural revolution about 10,000 BCE that put society on a trajectory of accumulation of property, power, myths, archetypes, and technology as embodied in patriarchy. All conditioned by a primitive and mostly unconscious set of behaviors encoded in human genes.

judith/July 17, 2019

Roy/July 17, 2019

Nice, yeah, when the trips stopped a big part of me died. And, keeping us ignorant was the big reason for taking them away from us, but for those who would like to try it again, it’s very easy to make your own; all you need is a potato, milk and sunshine and look it up on the internet.

Jenny Kastner/July 17, 2019

I’ve been a Marxist most of my life. I think the emphasis on psychedelics is overwrought, as much as I appreciate your work, Caitlin. Many of us have experienced the deep contradictions between what we’re told and what we experience, without the help of anything but our own senses.

Satyam/July 17, 2019

Once again you write an amazing article. Thank you, with so much information out there being twisted, diverted and hidden it’s validating to hear words that express what’s truly going on. I’m outraged by those with power and money pulling strings of destruction on a global scale. I also hold the undiscerning public responsible. We could all rise up easily and quickly. I know that knowledge has been subverted but actually, not really. You know what’s going on, I know what’s going on. There are too many of the general public that drop the ball caring about what’s happening in favor of personal comfort. It’s not only the rich and powerful whose greed is destroying everything. The general public is also guilty.

Once again, Caitlin, spot on. I often have mused about where all that 60’s love and spiritual connection went. Of course THEY couldn’t tolerate it. I sure could. And did. And opened, and learned, and very quietly rebelled and indeed Dropped Out.

And then, as life and responsibilities to myself showed up, I slowly eased back into the system. Just far enough to play the games– without getting trapped in them. Now I teach people how to be happy. What a hoot! We came into this world as representatives of Happy, inside, our nature, we were happiness and freedom and love incarnate.

Then the remnants of the old dream who were still in charge (parents, teachers, religions) taught us THEY were the source of our happiness…IF we behaved according to their needs and rules. It worked. We became outer directed and reward seeking. Inner love was hidden away in the dark, dismissed, punished, mocked, and arrested. The love and freedom IS our nature, our truth, and I believe that is the light shining under the door.

Thank you Caitlin. Let’s fight our way back to the Light!! It is my life and my work and my service and I honor you for your voice. <3

Satyam/July 17, 2019

@Jenny, it’s not about psychedelics, it’s about the flowering/expansion of consciousness of society of which psychedelics are only incidental. You don’t have to take psychedelics to be part of enlightenment.

There is NO difference between communism, fascism, marxism, nazism, progressivism or socialism….they are all rebranded feudalism, created by demonic warlords. There are only two forms of social organization….either you have Free Speech, Property Rights and rule by informed consent….or YOU DO NOT. Our comma has been induced by Operation Mockingbird and MKUltra psychopaths who realised too late the power of Universal Consciousness, and are desperate to control the briefly free internet. Find and share Truth….it is your duty as an Earthling. End feudalism….help us create an Eden on Earth.

F. Foundling/July 17, 2019

Libertarianism, free-market conservatism and neoliberalism, for one thing, certainly are rebranded feudalism. The cult of property rights is a cult of the right of feudal masters to rule their serfs. Property is power.

Bob H/July 17, 2019

Two of the main legacies of the Roman Empire (the Empire never died. ~PKDick) are the Church and the system of deeds that enabled, for the first time, long term ownership of property by people — in this case property ownership only by Roman citizens.

It’s terribly tempting to want to feed the hungry proletariat the meal they desire. But each of those comics you mention have all made me laugh hard. Much of late night comedy now sadly is remarkably interchangeable. Don’t despair https://t.co/MePoHPzcJq

@RobSchneider This is exactly why I reserve a special hatred for comedians like Bill Maher, Steve Colbert, Samantha Bee and Trevor Noah who sell their talent to the churning out of propaganda for establishment power structures. https://t.co/vTVPNe3kU8

Excerpt from "Mainstream 'Centrists' Pose The Greatest Ideological Threat To Us All":

People like Ashton Kutcher imagine that the so-called “center” is called that because it sits smack dab in the middle of the ideological spectrum between communism and fascism, right in that moderate sweet spot that respects capitalism and private ownership without flying off the deep end into Nazi-like tyranny. In reality, the status quo exists entirely outside any left-right paradigm. It’s neither “left” nor “right” to give total control of the western world to an alliance of plutocrats and opaque government agencies who seek to expand their power and wealth by destroying our ecosystem, waging endless wars, and gradually shoring up more and more control of their citizenry via internet censorship, surveillance and police militarization. It’s just crazy.

I’m picking on Ashton not because he occupies some special place in all this, but because he doesn’t. He’s just an illustration of how blind people have become to the real threat that’s right in front of them, and how normalized insanity has become.

People who identify as “left” see the ruling power establishment as right-wing, people who identify as “right” see the ruling power establishment as left-wing, and people who identify as “center” see themselves as moderates whose normal, healthy way of life is under threat by the “far right” and “far left”. But really all that’s happening is a few assholes fucking over everyone else, which is no more “left” or “right” than a terrorist attack. The left versus right argument doesn’t even make sense until this far more pressing issue has been resolved. A Bernie supporter and a Trump supporter are arguing about left versus right while trapped in a room with a tiger who’s eating them both alive.